Welcome to my digital merry-go-round
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Hi! my name is Anita and I am an English teacher at Brundalen high school in Trondheim, Norway. I am also a student of foreign language didactics at NTNU, the University of Trondheim.This wiki is dedicated to work done in my digital competence class at NTNU this semester, and it will work as a dynamic filing cabinet for the various pieces of work that I intend to show my fellow students and professors.

Voki avatar
I have created an avatar to present my work to whomever is interested in it. In order to do so I used Voki. This is how KillerStartUpsdescribe this tool:" Voki is a fun tool that allows you to create your own personal avatar and give it a voice. You can choose from a wide selection of characters, as well as animals, anime looking characters, and more, and you can personalize them with different hair styles, clothing options, accessories, and more. You can also choose the backdrop behind them and the stage for that backdrop. Once you have created your character, you can bring them to life by giving them a voice. You can do this by either adding a message via your phone or microphone, or you can just type in a message and voice to speak what you have written. It´s fun to watch the avatar´s mouth as it “says” what you have recorded, since it looks like the avatar is actually speaking."

I was surprised at how easy it was to create my personal avatar and giving it a voice. The tool is free of charge, it is user friendly, and it might be a fun way of having students speak English in class... The only technical obstacle I met with was trying to embed the avatar in my glog. I guess these two digital tools aren't compatible.Uploading the Voki avatar to this wikipage wasn't a problem, though, so here she is:


Get a Voki now!




Literature and didactics for the 3rd space.

Teaching English language literature is the part of the curriculum in English that I enjoy the most. On the other hand, learning about English literature, reading it, and having to write texts in English isn't necessarily what the students like the most! I think it is all about the way they encounter the literary texts. Are the literary gems merely presented to the students, or does the teacher open the individual text for them, make them live the text, feel and experience it?

Teaching literature the traditional way through close reading, translating, and doing comprehension questions afterward isn't wrong and futile, but most of the time it is tedious and not very inspiring. I have always wanted to try out alternative approaches to this literature, and throughout the two semesters at PLU I really have gotten food for thought. Last semesters drama classes and this semesters literature and digital competence classes have really showed me alternative ways of going about teaching literature. On this note many of my blogposts are about various digital approaches to literature.Of course, teaching literature through digital means is not the only path to salvation, but I think such an approach will open the literature to more of my students. Read my blogpost on literature and didactics for the 3rd space here.